Just a Kiwi girl, shouting into the void with her post-structural feminist film views

From the left field: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

From the left field: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

By the way, amazingly, by sheer willpower, this blog post is SPOILER FREE! Yayyyyy.

As a result, however, this won’t really delve into themes or matters of representation etc, it’s more or less just a rundown on what makes this show great. So you can also probably expect this to be rather short.

Sorry if you were expecting more.

But also not sorry.

As a general, but not hard and fast, rule, I usually won’t watch a show (and often times a movie) if I haven’t heard of it before.

This isn’t to say I have to have read a positive review, or even heard a review at all. It simply means, if I didn’t know a show existed before I stumbled upon it, the likeliness of me watching it is significantly lower than if I’d, say, heard it in passing before finding it in passing.

Nevertheless, on one of the many Tuesday night’s (TV night) when I didn’t want to watch another Meta-of-the-Week on Flash, or it’s-all-my-fault moment of Oliver’s on Arrow, me and my partner were scrolling through Netflix in search of a show to watch, when we came across Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I’d never heard this title before, and although I’ve read the first book in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, and of course seen the movie, I also had no idea (even as I was halfway through the show) that Dirk Gently’s etcetc was written by Douglas Adams. If I had known, maybe my enjoyment of the show wouldn’t have come as such a surprise to myself!

So, why did I enjoy this show so much?

It’s hilarious.
There you go. End of blog post.

I’m kidding.

There are many things out there that are hilarious to me, but I’m not exactly about to write a blog post on each and every Vine I watch.

Or am I? Vine blog posts, coming soon.

So what makes Dirk Gently’s etcetc so worthy of me typing approximately 700 words?

Well, if you’ve watched and enjoyed The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you likely already know.

This show is littered with incredibly quirky, weird, and left-field sentences, characters that don’t quite make sense, and overall a plot that is so convoluted that if I was to try to explain it to you, you’d probably think I was watching a 7 year olds attempt at science fiction.

But I’m nothing if not steadfast in my attempts to convince people to watch things I like.

So here goes.

Dirk Gently is a holistic detective, which is to say he lets the universe give him clues to the case, rather than actually seeking out and understanding clues himself. He meets up with Frodo – er, I mean Todd – by breaking into his house and declaring he lives there, after Todd has discovered a bizarre, and seemingly impossible murder scene in the penthouse of the hotel he worked at. Until his untimely firing only moments after his discovery.

Todd unwillingly goes along with Dirk’s holistic detecting, all the while, being chased by 4 rioting men calling themselves the ‘Rowdy 3’, trying to give back a corgi, and helping his sister pay for her meds.

Dirk is attempting the noble cause of solving the murder, finding the victims kidnapped daughter, and putting together clues and maps created by the murder victim, all the while being chased by a holistic assassin hell-bent on murdering him for no reason she can explain.

This might make absolutely no sense in terms of a recognisable plot, but all I can tell you is

Honestly, I’m glad no one had tried to tell me about this show before I stumbled upon in on Netflix. I would’ve flat out said no thanks, not my can of beans, and happily ignored it.

But thank God no one did, because I can honestly say this show has some incredibly witty dialogue, some powerful and aesthetically pleasing cinematography and wardrobe choices, and an easy-going, binge-able nature.

There are, of course, a few sad moments, some very cute moments, and even in a few cases, a couple of nail-biting moments.

So if you’ve given up on the fan-service, self-congratulatory BBC Sherlock, then you’re lucky there’s a new detective in town. He’s also pale, British, skinny and male, but he already has more dimension, respect for women and POC, and a better outfit than BBC Sherlock ever did.

Oh, also, for what it’s worth, the representation in this is actually not too shabby, or at least, definitely a move in the right direction.

I’ve never really written a blog post to try and encourage others to watch a show or movie, I’m used to analysing them. Dirk Gently’s etcetc doesn’t really require any analysis, but I felt it deserved a mention, as we managed to finish it in 2 chunks, and I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

The season also ended on a holy shit moment, so I’m hoping the more people I can convince to watch it, the more likely they’ll get season 2 picked up!

Let me know if you’ve watched it too, and if you haven’t I’ve so kindly linked the trailer below!